Featured

What does the Bible say about God’s leading? It says that if we acknowledge God in all our ways, He will direct our paths (Prov. 3:5–6). We are encouraged by Scripture to learn the will of God for our lives, and we do so by focusing our...
Keep Reading

The unifying theme of Isaiah 6–12 is the coming Messianic king. Chapters 6 and 12 frame the entire subsection, with chapter 6 telling of the call and cleansing of Isaiah and chapter 12 recording the song of salvation sung by the saved community. The subsection begins with the death of King Uzziah, the embodiment of the Davidic house. Chapters 7–11 then center on the coming of a holy and divine monarch. The two kingships, the divine and the Davidic, will ultimately merge in a Messianic King from the house of David (cf. 7:14; 9:6–7; 11:1–10).
Keep Reading

When you have a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail. In like manner, when you have a wrench everything looks like a bolt. Any given tool empowers us and tempts us. It makes easier the task for which the tool was designed, while tempting us to think that every problem will be solved by it, every question answered by it.
Keep Reading

Allie was having a rough night. She had already been disciplined once for slapping one of the pastor's sons across the face, and she had just done it again, this time to his brother. Her mother was humiliated and frustrated. Allie was angry, ashamed, and hopeless as she sat in her room awaiting the consequences.
Keep Reading

In Steven Lawson's latest book, The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon, Lawson argues that Charles Spurgeon's fervent commitment to the doctrines of grace "sharpened" his "gospel focus." So what exactly did Spurgeon believe about the five points of Calvinism? Using excerpts from The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon, we'll answer that question in what will be a five part series on the blog. Our prayer is that these truths will sharpen your gospel focus also.
Keep Reading

The last Saturday in October is perhaps my favorite day of the year. The Southwest Virginia church I served for more than a dozen years has a grand celebration every year on that day. The people celebrate the grace of God in bringing us the Reformation, which began October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the church door in Wittenberg. The celebration includes a telling of the story of Martin Luther to the children around a bonfire with s'mores. (I told the story when we lived there.) It includes contests in cooking chili and in cooking pies. It includes a grand street fair, with fresh fried doughnuts, barbeque, and hot french fries. All Ninety-Five of the theses are recited. Children and adults sing and play their instruments. And as the day draws to a close, the people dance. They dance with each other. They dance before the watching world. Most of all, they dance for the pleasure of our King and Redeemer. It's a wonderful day, celebrating a glorious gospel.
Keep Reading

The interpretation of the prophetic books is not a simple matter, and in order to understand these books, they must be approached with care and caution. They cannot be approached as if they were little more than collections of arcane predictions. As we shall discover, they are much more than this, but before proceeding to an examination of the individual prophetic books, we must answer some preliminary questions. First, what is a prophet?
Keep Reading